According to an Internet industry association, the use of Germany’s 5G cell phone networks will increase significantly this year. “Because the 5G antennas now reach the vast majority of households and therefore have good area coverage, consumers see greater benefit for themselves and are booking tariffs in the transmission standard more and more often,” said the managing director of the telecommunications association VATM, Frederic Ufer, to the dpa in the run-up to the MWC mobile communications trade fair, which starts on Monday in Barcelona and focuses on the advantages of 5G.
Deutsche Telekom says its 5G antennas already reach around 96 percent of households in Germany, Telefónica (O2) 95 percent and Vodafone 91 percent.
The providers Vodafone and Telekom activated their networks in the 5th generation (5G) mobile communications standard as early as 2019, O2 followed in 2020. After that, it took a long time until the new technology, which offers extremely fast transmissions, large bandwidths and very low latencies (response times). offers, came out of its niche existence.
“Even with 3G and 4G there was a jerky start”
From the point of view of industry representative Ufer, this is the normal course of things. “The launch of 3G and 4G was also jarring: Given the initially low coverage, end consumers were reluctant to spend money on more expensive tariffs, especially since the selection of compatible devices was initially limited.” It was the same with 5G.
In the meantime, more and more 5G-compatible smartphones have come onto the market. “In their expansion, the network operators have achieved a feat of strength that not only significantly helps the industry, but also offers consumers a new mobile phone experience.”
However, the previous standard, 4G, still dominates data traffic, according to Vodafone. This is also because many people do not yet have 5G tariffs. The use of the 5th generation of mobile communications (5G) is increasing significantly, says the head of technology at Vodafone Germany, Tanja Richter. “Last year, almost twice as much data was transmitted with 5G in the 5G network as in the previous year. We expect an even steeper increase this year.”
Rapid growth in EM traffic expected
This is due, among other things, to the fact that the number of 5G-capable smartphones is continuously increasing. “And people are accessing more and more video streams with their smartphones and tablets: they share personal experiences in social networks with photos and, increasingly, with data-intensive moving images.”
Vodafone manager Richter expects that 5G will become more important for many citizens this summer than before: “We expect particularly rapid growth in data traffic in the 5G network during the European Football Championship,” says Richter. “Many people will watch the games on mobile and share impressions from the stadiums and fan zones.”
